quicken

When you can’t give a pet the care that it deserves anymore, you find a new home for it. Accounting software company Intuit is packing up its original product, the personal finance program Quicken, and sending it off to live with new owners. The private equity firm H.I.G. Capital and Eric Dunn, the general manager of the Quicken brand will purchase the program and its brand. [More]

The Federal Housing Administration insures mortgages, which makes it easier and more affordable for people to buy homes. That’s good. Quicken Loans happens to be an FHA lender, which is also good. What’s kind of confusing, though, is how the web page where you start your FHA loan application explicitly exempts FHA loans. Sort of.

We should all have some sort of document that details who gets what after we die, but should we be paying big bucks to some lawyer to write said document when there are websites and applications that can help you do it yourself for significantly less money?

When news broke back in September that Intuit, the company behind Quicken, was buying personal finance website Mint, everyone wondered how the two services would co-exist. The worst case scenario was that Mint would be absorbed somehow into Intuit’s in-house competitor, Quicken Online. Thankfully, it looks like the opposite will happen.

Slate tested a slew of personal-finance tools recently, and Mint and Quicken Online were the top two winners, with Mint only a point behind. Besides the advertising disguised as “ways to save,” one area where Mint lost points was not being able to create custom categories. Three days later, Mint announced that they were enabling custom categories. So, in a do-over, Mint would probably win. Plus it’s free. UPDATE: Quicken Online just launched a basic tier of service for free. The dance continues!

Sick of overdrafts? Don’t feel like juggling your bank balance in your head? Quickenbeam from Intuit is a new free service, in beta, that lets you check your account balances, no matter what bank you have, from your cellphone.

A reader reports that thanks to a big update over the weekend, customers haven’t been able to connect to Chase services via Quicken, MS Money, or Quickbooks, though web browsers still work. Seamus writes, “The worst part is that only about half of their support staff are even aware of the problem, and no resolution time has been given. Another “upgrade” gone wrong!”

Awhile back we linked to a discussion over at Zen Habits about the best budgeting software/web apps. Lo and behold, there is a follow up post that contains 6 free alternatives to Quicken and Money. And hey, good news! GNU Cash is now available for Windows.

Wachovia is charging customers a $5.95 monthly fee to access their accounts through Quicken or Microsoft Money. The fee, which took effect April 1, aligns Wachovia with the 27% of banks that penalize consumers who access their accounts through money management software.

Both Quicken and MS Money sneak these “sunset” clauses in their end user license agreements, giving them carte blanche to completely disable major parts of their functionality if they feel like it. These features include online bill pay, downloading any financial information, portfolio tracking, and more. Basically, all the cool stuff.

Despite holdings of almost $1.5 trillion, Bank of America, the largest bank in America, won’t sync with users of Quicken for Mac. Reader Philip, who spent $65 on Quicken, writes to tell us how Intuit’s website advertises such compatibility.

This week, Chase and Bank One merged their on-line systems. Birds shivered with glee. Stroboscopic dew drops danced on kittens claws in exultation. And Bank One customers got jacked like a cheap trick on Colfax Ave.

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